An article from the New York Times is referencing sources claiming that EA has approached Valve a number of times in an attempt to purchase the company. Valve, however, has not been receptive to the idea. They instead prefer to remain under the ownership of Gabe Newell, who created the company in 1996 with then partner Mike Harrington. In the same article Newell provided the comment that he would rather the company "disintegrate" before it sells.

"It’s way more likely we would head in that direction than say, ‘Let’s find some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years to have our employment agreements terminate."

As a privately held company, Valve is able to do many things differently than your typical developer, for example the upcoming Big Picture experiment or the Dota 2 tournament The International, which had a $1,000,000 prize for the first place team -- provided entirely by Valve. These are just a few examples of Valve's willingness and interest in doing more than be a game developer/platform developer.

Which is of course a good reason for any large company, like EA, to be interested in purchasing Valve. While Valve is certainly valuable simply due to its existing game titles and the Steam platform, its true worth is in what's ahead. Sequels or new franchises, expansion into hardware or non-gaming software, and who knows what else. It's a future worth protecting, a future Gabe Newell isn't willing to pass off to the public or anyone else.

A million times this. Give me a phenomenal game once every 10 years ahead of shit every 6 months. Blizzard also does this well, what with their Starcraft and Diablo franchises.

But Diablo 3 and post WotLK-WoW are aweful. Ever since they where bought out by Activision they have lost their touch and just seem to be living off of the success of games made pre-activision. Corporate buy-outs are never a good thing for company's like Valve, Pandemic, DICE, and Tripwire. Its a shame what happened to Blizzard and Blizzardnorth. This is why we are all proud of Valve at the moment.

I must say, all my experience with Blizzard has been in recent years is with Starcraft only, and Starcraft II is phenomenal. Alas, I extrapolated and thought this applied to all Blizzard games currently.

A million times this. Give me a phenomenal game once every 10 years ahead of shit every 6 months. Blizzard also does this well, what with their Starcraft and Diablo franchises.

But Diablo 3 and post WotLK-WoW are aweful. Ever since they where bought out by Activision they have lost their touch and just seem to be living off of the success of games made pre-activision. Corporate buy-outs are never a good thing for company's like Valve, Pandemic, DICE, and Tripwire. Its a shame what happened to Blizzard and Blizzardnorth. This is why we are all proud of Valve at the moment.

Yes, the big evil corporation trying to buy another, "good", corporation is the classic good v evil we all love so much, right?

>thinking l4d3, tf3, and hl3 will come out in the next 5 yearsHaha keep dreaming buddy. Valve has never developed a game with the number 3 in it.

EA isn't Evil, but they don't care about the art, they've sunk a shitload of old and great companies after squeezing them dry and now's forcing all their studios to make only MP games, even RPGs who have no business being MP.

Valve don't need to release sequels every year, they don't need to do anything that is now the norm as what they do works for them. Yes we would all love Half-Life 3, but I still prefer their method to the way the industry is going where every game gets an annual sequel whether it needs one or not.

If Half-Life was an EA or Activision franchise it would be nearing Half-Life 14 by now, but what Valve have done is create something that will live on. In 10-15 years we won't be looking forward to Half-Life 8 we will be looking forward to Half-Life 4. I like that, Valve have the resolve to not give in to fan pressure.

What I do know is that Valve will make a game with a 3 in it one day, maybe in the near future, maybe not. Though when it happens it will yet again be seen as a milestone in gaming as Valve don't operate any other way.

A million times this. Give me a phenomenal game once every 10 years ahead of shit every 6 months. Blizzard also does this well, what with their Starcraft and Diablo franchises.

Valve don't need to release sequels every year, they don't need to do anything that is now the norm as what they do works for them. Yes we would all love Half-Life 3, but I still prefer their method to the way the industry is going where every game gets an annual sequel whether it needs one or not.

If Half-Life was an EA or Activision franchise it would be nearing Half-Life 14 by now, but what Valve have done is create something that will live on. In 10-15 years we won't be looking forward to Half-Life 8 we will be looking forward to Half-Life 4. I like that, Valve have the resolve to not give in to fan pressure.

What I do know is that Valve will make a game with a 3 in it one day, maybe in the near future, maybe not. Though when it happens it will yet again be seen as a milestone in gaming as Valve don't operate any other way.